The Southside Report                                             Febuary , 2011

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A Few Comments and Random Thoughts

Dear Friends:


Are you a baseball fan?  I am.  Spring training is in full swing, and I am convinced the Rays are on the brink of a very good season.  But, of course, there’s good news and bad news about our home town team, and right now it’s tough to say what we’ll see in the coming months.  Real Estate is a lot like baseball, don’t you think?

I continue to be encouraged by the solid increase in activity.  Every indicator shows substantial progress in terms of transactions.  The number of sales for February topped last year by 12% and is a whopping 70% above the anemic days of ’08 and ’09.  Check out the “Year To Year Comparison”; the last twelve months show an increase in transactions of 18% over the year before and 33% above the ’08 – ’09 levels.  It’s enough to make me giddy.

The information on sales prices is not as positive or clear-cut.  While the average sales price for February is actually up slightly from a year ago, that number is skewed by a couple of closings above $3 million.  The Median Sales Price and Price Per Square Foot are both down. Take a look at the Twelve Month Trend, the best indicator whether prices are moving up or down.  The Average Price for February is 8% below the twelve month average, and the Average Price Per Foot has dipped 6% below the average.  I was really hoping to see something that told me prices were stabilizing.  But they aren’t.  Good bye, giddy.

Almost daily someone will ask me if the market is getting better, and I don’t know how to answer.  The good news is the substantial increase in activity:demand is making a comeback; more people are on the move.   And why wouldn’t they be?  Prices are at the lowest levels since 2002; rates are at all time lows; selection is good.

And the bad news, of course, is that prices are continuing to slide.  I thought a few months ago that we had reached the bottom, but I was overly optimistic.  And we can’t say that the market has rebounded until both the number of sales and the price are moving in a positive direction.

Back to baseball.  The bad new is that the Rays had to cut payroll this year, and that meant letting go of  Carl Crawford, the best outfielder in the business and a certain future Hall of Famer, along with most of last year’s very effective bull pen staff.  The good news is that we’ve added veterans Johnny Damon and Manny Ramirez to the lineup; All-Star pitcher David Price is now in his prime, and the new kid, Hellikson, looks like the real deal. 

The next couple of months are going to be very interesting to watch.  Expect the number of transactions to continue to be strong.  I’m going to watch the price trends very closely, looking and expecting prices to stabilize.  We should know by the All-Star break in early July.

If your home is currently for sale or you are thinking of selling, there are Buyers out there.  But they are educated and looking for a bargain.  Forget about pricing your home based on comparable sales in the past, and set your price so that it’s competitive with what is on the market today.  That’s what the Buyer looks at.

Buyers trying to time the market better make their move soon.  We might see prices slide a little over the next few months, but it won’t be much.  And I believe we will see them starting to edge up in the second half of this year.

I remain convinced that we are in for a good, solid season ahead.

Bruce M. Tigert



Twelve Month Trends Average Sale Price
	Mar '10	Apr '10	May '10	June '10	July '10	Aug '10	Sept '10	Oct '10	Nov '10	Dec '10	Jan '11	Feb '11	Average
Total	$278,454	$386,729	$352,521	$299,959	$357,913	$326,234	$353,893	$294,576	$297,642	$293,054	$240,235	$286,351	$313,963
Median Sales Price
	Mar '10	Apr '10	May '10	June '10	July '10	Aug '10	Sept '10	Oct '10	Nov '10	Dec '10	Jan '11	Feb '11	Average
Total	$219,500	$232,500	$265,000	$267,000	$217,500	$208,500	$230,000	$242,780	$218,301	$256,611	$218,957	$172,853	$229,125
Average Sales Price Per Square Foot
	Feb '10	Mar '10	Apr '10	May '10	June '10	July '10	Aug '10	Sept '10	Oct '10	Nov '10	Dec '10	Feb '11	Average
Total	$146	$136	$161	$158	$145	$159	$146	$154	$137	$142	$145	$124	$146

Sales By Price Range Febuary 2011
Price Range	Feb '10	Mar '10	Apr '10	May '10	June '10	July '10	Aug '10	Sept '10	Oct '10	Nov '10	Dec '10	Feb '11	Total Sales	Listings Feb '11	Absorption Rate*
$     0 - 200,000	48	67	46	38	69	47	49	52	54	42	64	55	631	528	10
$ 200 - 400,000	35	51	40	51	42	27	29	35	23	25	32	18	408	318	9
$ 400 - 600,000	12	17	12	9	19	6	10	14	13	18	17	10	157	153	12
$ 600 - 800,000	1	8	5	11	7	10	6	3	3	5	9	2	70	81	14
$ 800 - 1,000,000	3	3	4	5	4	0	2	4	5	2	3	5	40	39	12
$ 1M - 2,000,000	1	2	4	5	4	0	4	4	3	3	1	1	32	67	25
$ 2,000,000 +	0	0	3	0	0	2	1	1	0	0	1	0	8	34	51
* Absorption Rate = the number of months to absorb the current number of listings based on the average number of sales per month.